Welcome To the World of Cryptographic Voting | Dr. Dobb's | November 19, 2009

Dr. Dobb's | Welcome To the World of Cryptographic Voting | November 19, 2009:

In a recent Takoma Park, Md. election, a new cryptographic voting system that ensures accurate vote counts was used for the first time in a real election. Scantegrity II is an open source election verification technology for optical scan voting systems.

It uses privacy preserving confirmation numbers to allow each voter to verify her vote is counted. The confirmation numbers also allow anyone to verify that all the votes were counted correctly. The system is a variation on conventional optical-scan voting. But instead of filling in a bubble next to a candidate's name, the voter uses a special pen that exposes a code printed inside the bubble in invisible ink. Voters can write down that code, along with the serial number of their ballot, to later verify the results online.